The Climax, May 09 Part 5

On the seventh day, with two hours to go before her departure, my mom was apparently ready to have an interpersonal moment.  A bit choked up, she began, referring to her husband, “Sonny told me not to bring this up. He told me I was just opening up a can of worms.” 

A pack of Harley riders stormed through right then.  We were at a restaurant with a window seat, I had my back to the window, and I just HAD to turn around. I stayed and gazed, compelled, until the storm had passed.

“I don’t know why anyone would want to ride those,” she began, and I let her tell me a story about a really loud motorcycle in her neighborhood.

In a spirit of encouragement, I said, “So…you were going to open up a can of worms? Even though Sonny said not to?”

“Your Aunt Joan,” my mom said, “told me that you had a conversation with her.” Great. Aunt Joan and I had talked a few months before, sharing our common experience of having my mom accidentally auto dial us when drunk. What the hell.  Why would she share this with my mom? I noticed, however, with all due thanks to the Goddess, that I did not feel a wave of fear—a wave of having been caught, wave of feeling like I needed to gather my resources for her onslaught. I felt…peaceful, as she continued. 

“Aunt Joan said…she said you told her that I loved Lisa and Jenny more than you.”  I’ve known my mom all my life, so I knew it would have been deeply wounding to her if I’d have laughed right then, but first, I was relieved that Aunt Joan hadn’t told my mom about our drunk auto-dialing conversation and second, it actually was amusing…how long had she been carrying this guilty secret around? For “months”? Not to mention the entire week she'd been visiting me in Chicago.

“Actually, what I said to Aunt Joan was that you liked Lisa and Jenny more than me.  Not loved.  And you do.  They are totally normal people who don’t have lesbian Tantra sessions in their basement, and you are more comfortable around them than you are around me.  And I don’t have a problem with that. Really, it’s fine.”

“Well, they look at me when I talk, as though what I have to say is interesting.  And they make comments and interact.” I have no idea what to say about this, so I don’t comment. 

She continued: “I’m not so fond of rosemary; I gave all my recipes with rosemary to Lisa. I don’t cook with it anymore and those recipes were just taking up space. Lisa grows rosemary.” My mother was referring to the salad she was eating, which apparently contained traces of rosemary.

We resume lunch; that was apparently the extent of the can of worms her husband had advised her not to open. Later, in the car, on the way to the airport, on the way to my big exhale, I ask, “Mom, were you satisfied with the conversation we had about Lisa and Jen?  Or is there more you want to say?”

She replies: “Well, it’s more Lisa than Jen. I really like her. Lisa is so cheerful and positive.” That is true about my cousin Lisa, but my mom also loves—she adores--that Lisa has worked for AT&T for 20 years and gotten regular promotions. She mentions it to me regularly.

 

She continues…“And Lisa has more, more---“ her voice trails off.

“—disposable income?” I ask, immediately horrified. It just popped out of my mouth. Possibly the rudest comment I’ve ever made. Ever.

“Yes!” my mom exclaims.  “That’s exactly the phrase I was thinking of! On St. Patrick’s Day, in fact, she sent us the cutest shamrock salt and pepper shakers, and some Irish Crème. And she picked up these nice napkins--she knows just what I like.”

I am thrilled that my mom didn’t realize what an insult she had just avoided, thrilled she didn’t realize how cynical my helpful verbal prompt had actually been. I am thrilled that my cousins take an interest in my mom. And my cousin Lisa does deserve to be in some special category, because my mom, queen of judging how others live their lives, has decided that Lisa passes with flying colors.

 …Jen…apparently not quite; and Rachel, just no…. And thus ended our heart-to-heart.  I felt lighter, more free. The energy in my car seemed clearer. Drive on, I said to myself. Drive on. I drove her to the airport, feeling like the embodiment of “the truth will set you free.”

My mom is being eaten alive by her dysfunctions, by her ego, by the thing we are all trying to let go of, the voice of judgment, criticism, insecurity, the voice that says: right now, something might be wrong, and if not, at any time, something might go wrong.  

I have made specific recommendations to her, easy and accessible, but that ego voice prevents her from taking charge and making change, even an easy one, like, take a ten-minute walk and count your breaths.  Friends have said, “But she has to ask you for advice, she has to want it.” Oh…she has asked. She has asked what I would do if someone came to me with her set of problems, and I have said, I would send them to a therapist and I would have them take a ten-minute walk every day and count their breaths, to help release that connection to the thoughts that anchor you into thinking you are those thoughts. 

She hasn’t walked. And it wouldn’t matter, if she weren’t my mother.

The connection is powerful, and the choice is there, her choice, to be connected to her dysfunctions…and it’s hard for me to see beyond them.  Or to just feel her energy, the energy that gave me life, the energy that is the female lineage of who I am and who my daughter is—the energy that we summon, every time we open up a mother-daughter circle.

The best I can do, right here, right now, is to allow my mother—the physical, earthly, dysfunction riddled, crying out for help mother—to be the mirror that I know every other human being to be.  And when I look at that mirror, I have to acknowledge the paralyzing line of victimhood that runs through her, to me, in a lesser and far more conscious degree, the line of victimhood that has reached my daughter to some degree as well but which, when seen and acknowledged in me, by me, ceases to be paralyzing and becomes a lesson in transcendence.  

For me it is every day, little by little, less and less. For my daughter it is…on occasion. Sometimes, she has a victimy moment. And, amazing creator that she is, she has created a mother who is able to say, “You don’t have to be that. You can see it, and make a choice.”

And in case we couldn’t see the victim in us, in case it was destined to become a worm, embedded, that we’d have to dig for and unearth, we have my mother, large as life, to thank: Thank you for being my Divine Mirror.